I thought today would be a bit dull after the elections, but thankfully the Daily Mail has rushed to entertain us all with its latest ludicrous attempt to make workless benefit claimants seem to be ‘workshy’.

Having said that, when an article is run under the headline What the Left doesn’t want you to know about Britain’s £200 billion welfare bill and then states that benefits are not being cut, even though we know that inflation is rising faster than the uprating given to benefits by Generous Gideon Osborne, meaning that he really is pushing a real-terms cut onto people who cannot stop him… You know it has nothing to do with the facts.

The same website also contains – if you scroll further down – the Fail‘s ‘Workshy Map of Britain’. This is a map showing the number of people claiming ESA who were found ‘fit for work’ according to the bogus DWP/Atos work capability assessment (which, I remind you, is not a medical assessment at all). Bear in mind that, on appeal, more than one-seventh of these findings are overturned. Appeals supported by legal experts have a 90+ per cent chance of being upheld, which indicates that more of these decision are wrong than the statistics suggest.

Mike, I hate to put you right but according to Atos themselves the test is a medical one. I’m a 56 year old ME sufferer with a lot of other & a couple of life threatening conditions but the DWP want me to go for an assessment on the 31st May. A woman from Atos rang me and set it up and her very words were that the DWP wanted me to go for a medical assessment. I rang the number back & that’s when I realised it was Atos. My questioning of a guy I spoke with and asked how it could be a medical assessment when the Government have said it’s a work capability assessment got the response that it was both. I’ve arranged to have it recorded & I shall be asking who my interrogator is & what their qualifications are seeing as it is a ‘medical assessment’ also.

Trust me on this.
It’s a tick-box computer assessment. They call it medical but you’ll see for yourself what it really is. I saw when I went with Mrs Mike. They get you to try to do things and then make notes – according to what they are told to write down.
Ask yourself this: Is someone who disregards a person’s claim to be mentally ill because “they weren’t rocking back and forth or sweating” really making a medical assessment or just responding to something they’ve been told?

Mike the law society gives you names of solicitors who refuse to take up your case, especially if you have a chance of winning it and embarrassing the government with your evidence, because legal aid solicitors are funded by the government and he who pays the piper calls the tune.

If you believe there is a 90 per cent success rate for appeals then I’m sorry to say you are more naive than I give you credit for, the johnny void blogg commenters put it down to 25% at most. A lot of people on sickness benefit are also rich, like rich pensioners taking from the state and can afford solicitors. If you can put people on here in touch with someone that will fight their case with legal aid,I would be grateful if you could put their details up on the screen.

Guy, You are doing what the government like people to do, latch on to a large figure and complain about it.

The 90+% figure is not 90% of all claimants, it’s not even 90% of those that DO appeal, it’s purely 90% of those appelants that get legal advocates at their tribunal do win their appeal.

Unfortunately, the number that can arrange for an advocate at their appeal is not even half of the 70% of claimants that, having appealed, win.

The problem with statistics and percentaged statistics is that it is very easy to lose track which portion of which figure the percentage applies to.

The 25% that Johnny Void quotes most probably refers to the number of appeals that have a legal advocate present, so therefore the 90% Mike refers to is the 22.5% of appeals that are won with a legal person supporting the claimant.

People are not winning appeals because they do not have legal representation, not that they are not capable of presenting a case themselves which I am sure most could do having gone through atos and dwp proceedures. The appeal courts would rather deal with other professionals not individual complainants themselves.

Is that all you can offer, something almost everyone knows exists, who have reduced funds, reduced staff and who I have found personally to be useless at giving advice?
I was also sent there to work for nothing which I refused.

It’s got a very good record, though!
You seem extremely pessimistic today, I have to say. Also, you seem keen for others to do your work for you – and then complain about the response. I wonder what you are trying to achieve.

Who is doing my work for me? I was curious as to what you had to offer by way of legal counsel and I replied with my own experience. That does not seem pessimistic – that is pessimistic as to who is actually winning these appeals, because mine not only had evidence to prove them wrong but evidence to support that I was right, yet all was ignored, I wonder why? We can’t have any scandal surrounding public bodies or political parties can we?

May I help? I work as a WRO…so for ESA/DLA etc appeals, we obviously weed out the cases that have no chance of success, which will have an impact on success rates. My own experience, since becoming disabled myself 5 years ago, and so unable to actually turn up and represent in person except when I feel it absolutely necessary, is that a focused written submission, based on the customer’s own daily experience, preferably but not necessarily with a GP letter, focused on the relevant descriptor impresses Tribunals. The key to winning at appeal, once you have identified (for ESA) the relevant points is honesty…

Success rates…personally….only 35% when I attend, because those are the most difficult cases….about 75% when I have sent on written submission and medical evidence and customer goes on their own.

I don’t know whether you were replying to me but both solicitor and cab advocate both opted out of attending my tribunal, I won neither. I have represented myself and not won and I know I clearly should have, I think they are all rigged.

Still on the subject of benefits, I wonder if anyone’s heard of this cruel twist on the bedroom tax which I read about in Private Eye.
It seems that if you have a son or daughter aged over 18 living at home, and thus occupying a bedroom, because they’re classed as non-dependent you still have to pay the bedroom tax for their room. They’re calling it the ‘occupied bedroom tax’. Of course, if your son/daughter moves out and finds their own place, you then pay the unoccupied bedroom tax for that room.Its a lose/lose situation.
Unbelievable! They’ll be bringing back the window tax next!

If you are on benefits and you have a son or daughter of working age who is employed and living in your home, they have to pay the whole of your rent if they earn enough money, their liability for your rent goes up or down incrementally depending on how much they earn, which is a disgraceful state of affairs and penalizes the poorest families.

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